I wonder how Andrew Sullivan is going to be able to reconcile all of this truth telling within his Obama Adoration circle. I'm sure the circular swooning and undulating stopped momentarily when he heard it only to continue once again as he brushed it off within his insanity ravaged mind. Oh, did I mention he is a homosexual too? I'm saying this purely to wound his ego. I love you snookums...

Careful there, Alpha - the link you gave claims that Joe Wilson "has been" a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It then says that the organization has been "taken over" in the last decade by radicals. You and I don't know so far what Joe Wilson's involvement in this newly radicalized version of the group is.

I went to AL's link and read this paragraph excerpted from the St. Petersburg Times.

LOL. It reads like Monty Python.

John Wilkes Booth members have been known to put pennies in urinals, making sure to leave the Lincoln side face-up. Other Lunatic groups have removed the U.S. flag from their halls and banned the Pledge of Allegiance, says Walter Hilderman, who several years ago created an anti-Lunatic group called Save the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Thanks for taking the bait, even though, admittedly, I wasn't chumming. Were you just pissed, hence distracted, by the "commi" wv?

Indeed, I believe the ACLU would support the right of "Other Lunatic groups" to remove the U.S. flag from their halls and ban the Pledge of Allegiance.

Shit, I do too.

The point is AL and at least two media sources were using the conduct of this splinter group, in a "McCarthy-ite" fashion, to impugn Wilson.

While absurd, hence the Python reference, unequivocally the underlying activity is protected conduct that the ACLU would defend as perfectly legal.

Now, go to the ACLU site, type in the word flag, and tell me if this page doesn't consist entirely of cases where the ACLU has intervened to defend either flag desecration or displaying it up-side down.

I suppose that's what you mean when you say the ACLU has never opposed "waiving the Stars and Stripes"?

IMHO: The best way to counter a lie is to do so directly, to say that it is a lie! Perhaps some might like to dither about and avoid the issue yet the lie remains. I think it much worse to let a lie stand as though it represents the truth when it cannot.

somefeller is the kind of person who screams racist at people he disagrees with. No statement about a race being better or worse or anything offensive... just opinions somefeller doesn't want to hear = racism.

That kind of thing indeed makes 'you lie' sound pretty classy by comparison. Other things that make 'you lie' sound mild are inviting code pink members to disrupt, or calling the president a 'loser' while giving a speech to school kids. But I think Wilson wasn't expressing disagreement so much as that he thought Obama was a liar. Whether or not HR 3200 would result in illegals getting free health care has a fact-value... it's not a matter of opinion.

Sheeeaat. They spend thousands of dollars on fancy consultants to give them the right key words....an' all that there stuff. Market research and them thar focus group thingys.

Yet...these Goobers from SC and that almost State of Alaskay keep puttin' speed bumps in the Won's super hi way buy makin' too word statements that grind up the gears on the dumb hicks, who don't know that Obamamie and his handlers know what is best for us'uns. Dumb rural rube hillbillie hicks!

What can we do about it? Let's take a page from history and the Bonus Army and expect that Obama will treat the marchers on DC the same. With the great exception that they aren't ASKING for money they are asking to not have money TAKEN from them.

Seriously....how many of you ever heard about the Bonus Army and how the Federal Government went to war against its own Veterans??

Racism never crossed my mind, either. I thought “You lie!” coming from the chamber was not crude or vulgar, but weirdly inappropriate. It seemed like some affected attempt to import British Parliamentary behaviour. It’s instructive, occasionally, to listen to Prime Minister’s Question Time. Americans are often taken aback at the noise and the level of insult (often very high, in fact). The House of Commons is a very rough crowd, perhaps the roughest political crowd in the world, much to its credit.

But that’s not the behavior we expect in our more dithering, superficially polite, and slow-witted Congress. So, Wilson, shouting, as he did, his very 18th century invective, seemed more like an embarrassing poseur than some crypto-bedsheet-wearer.

For my part (and I think this is true for most people I know), when I see Barak Obama, I do not think “black man.” To me, he seems fairly post-racial, and race has receded to the last thing I notice about him, on the level of some personal detail of grooming or style. I know his own history with race and politics, and am fully aware of the attempts to continue to use his race for political purposes, as we see here, but I think to most Americans it just isn’t a big deal.

Obama’s supporters, including the media, playing the race card here seems as forced and ridiculous as Joe Wilson’s cunningly spontaneous outburst. You just want to say, “Puhleeze!” and turn away, hoping the idiots will somehow have the decency to slink out, while everyone else, embarrassed, looks into space, hoping to hear the door slam soon.

Joe Wilson said something inappropriate for the time and venue, apologized, and had his apology accepted by the president. Stupid, but over.

One would think.

Instead, we have a group from the left who can't stop repeating "He said the President lied". True, but is that what you want the press and the voters to discuss endlessly? They might actually decide to find out for themselves if the President did, in fact, lie.

So, in exchange for destroying a marginal Congressman, they will keep alive the question of whether or not the President is playing fast and loose with the facts.

Dumb.

When Sarah Palin resigned, I couldn't imagine who would care what her opinion was in a month (and I voted for her). Thanks to the endless overreaction to "death panels", people now wait for her every word - if for no other reason but to pounce on it.

AlphaLiberal said... Joe Wilson, the Republicans' hero is a neo-Confederate. You know, the ones who want to destroy our country?

Suppose he is (or was) a neo-Confederate? Does that make his claim that Obama is lying untrue? Does one have anything to do with the other?

The Democrats have in Robert Byrd a former member of the KKK. Why doesn't that permanently invalidate everything Byrd says? In Ted Kennedy, they had a serial womanizer, sexual harrasser, and a "man" who not only killed a woman but told jokes about it. Not only did Ted Kennedy remain in office, he was considered a hero of the Left and recently eulogized by Obama.

If you want to try to discredit Joe Wilson for past (or present) membership in some organization, you had better be prepared to have the same tactic thrown back in your face. I suspect there are a lot more Democrats who'd be on the receiving end than Republicans.

I didn't read Theo's link, but here is another racially-tinged analysis of the Joe Wilson/Obama thing.

I don't buy it. I think it raises interesting points, but the treatment of a candidate in the opposition party as something other than true American (whatever that is) with less-than-ideal characteristics is hardly a new occurrence unique to Obama's administration. Besides, the authors have made a life's work of doing this kind of thing. If they could not perceive it, they'd be jobless, so they must perceive it.

Someone upthread said they don't see a Black Man in Obama. Me neither -- just a President.

btw -- the local paper had a list of uncivil behavior in Congress. All the participants were from South Carolina! The infamous caner. The fist fights. What is with those Palmetto Staters?

Yes Arkie, conservatives treated Bill Clinton with utmost respect during his 8 year term. People didn't say he murdered people or anything... oh wait, they did. While, you know, right wing kooks blew up federal buildings and had shootouts with Janet Reno's tyrannical ATF.

Slow Joe says:somefeller is the kind of person who screams racist at people he disagrees with. No statement about a race being better or worse or anything offensive... just opinions somefeller doesn't want to hear = racism.

Boy, Slow Joe, I really got under your skin when I pointed out the racist nature of some of your comments awhile back, didn't I? I think this is the third time you've mentioned my comments to you in a completely unrelated thread. How sad. Also, your comments here are dumb even by your standards, given that I didn't talk about racism one way or another in my comment here, or in most of my comments elsewhere on this site for that matter.

Slow Joe says:somefeller is the kind of person who screams racist at people he disagrees with. No statement about a race being better or worse or anything offensive... just opinions somefeller doesn't want to hear = racism.

Boy, Slow Joe, I really got under your skin when I pointed out the racist nature of some of your comments awhile back, didn't I? I think this is the third time you've mentioned my comments to you in a completely unrelated thread. How sad. Also, your comments here are dumb even by your standards, given that I didn't talk about racism one way or another in my comment here, or in most of my comments elsewhere on this site for that matter.

Sorry about the double post, everyone. I got a javascript error and thought the first post didn't go through.

Also, EDH, fair points and I'd agree with you regarding whether people have the right to remove the Stars and Stripes from their halls or ban the Pledge of Allegiance (whether it is right to do so, using another meaning of that word, is another thing altogether, of course). However, I think with regard to ACLU litigation and public policy issues, there isn't much in the way of laws against people waving the flag, so there isn't going to be much action on the part of the ACLU to protect that activity,and the website would reflect that.

Joe Wilson, the Republicans' hero is a neo-Confederate. You know, the ones who want to destroy our country?

So, Obama's past associations are irrelevant and mentioning them is because you're a racist or paranoid.

Joe Wilson, on the other hand...HIS past associations couldn't conceivably be more relevant.

This isn't even McCarthyism. McCarthy didn't want to name names until the Dems forced his hand. He was quite happy labeling his targets without names simply because, as he said, some might be completely innocent.

Rep. Wilson's outburst was wrong and thankfully he quickly apologized. Having said that I worry for Dems that once again they focus on the craziness of the opposition and therefore take there eyes off the ball.

And ironically in the meantime, several key players including Speaker Pelosi backed away from the pubic plan.

Overlooked in the noise and the race to condemn Wilson's outburst is that the Senate's version of the bill now closes the big-enough-to-sail-an-aircraft-carrier-through-it loophole that would have permitted undocumented aliens to get health coverage regardless of any language prohibiting the same. See discussion here.

I see that Wilson's likely opponent raised $500K from the usual suspects on the left. I plan to send Joe Wilson a campaign contribution to help re-level the playing field.

Careful there, Alpha - the link you gave claims that Joe Wilson "has been" a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It then says that the organization has been "taken over" in the last decade by radicals. You and I don't know so far what Joe Wilson's involvement in this newly radicalized version of the group is. .

Actually, I did check along those lines. According to the Associated Press:

Wilson's official biography lists him as a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. As a state senator, he voted against a bill to remove the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina Statehouse and move it to a monument on the capitol grounds. .

I just went to his official web site and it's "crashed" due to traffic. (Or they just took it down and are scrubbing it).

Southern Republicans have numerous ties to neo-confederates, KKK, CCC, etc so it's not very surprising.

I just wish the Confederacy would be more accurately regarded as anti-American. It's inherent.

There are at least three versions of the Stealth Care Bill in circulation. Is it a game of 3-card monte? Which one we're talking about at any given time seems to be colored by convenience of the person in question.

Maybe once we get down to one clear bill, we'll know if Obama is lying. Right now, it's 3-card monte.

Actually, most Southerners were unaware it was even on the State House until the NAACP raised a stink. Then we realized that their claim that they just want it off the State House was a lie and that appeasing race hustlers is a waste of time and energy.

AL you might want to put down that super-sized mug of Kool-Aide and do a little research.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is a historical society and a hereditary association, the only requirement of which is that you have an ancestor who served honorably in the Confederate military. They are non-political.

The SVC maintains a grave registry, genealogy and historical archive so future generations can understand the motives that created the Confederacy.

Tens of millions of Americans are avid Civil War collectors and amateur historians who belong to Civil War societies and re-enact battles. Pickett's Charge is a particularly sought after reenactment. Are these people to be held suspect too? Are we now pillorying people for their hobbies, familial lineage and private interests?

As Stacy McCain says; "You can’t know who you are without first knowing something about your ancestors."

Members of my extended family belong to Civil War historical orgs from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Some of whom vote Dem and return to Ziegler's Grove every chance they have as Confederate soldiers.

Pickett's Charge became one of the iconic symbols of the literary and cultural movement known as the Lost Cause.

It was as Obama says "a teaching moment".

William Faulkner, the quintessential Southern novelist, summed up the image in Southern memory of this gallant but futile episode:

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago."

Faulkner's fourteen year old boys weren't racists, they were Southerners, that may be a distinction beyond your comprehension.

He spake truth and that's why the donations are pouring in from all over the country.

The South Carolingians I know are straight talkers. This wouldn't offend his constituency.

I cheered at the TV, while watching Nancy Pelosi freak out--you could see the freakout in her eyes.

The fact-checking on Obama is showing him to be a liar...so yeah, let's keep this issue alive. In fact, let's start fact-checking every single damned claim he made in that fiery partisan campaign speech he made.

He showed he's a campaigner, not a politician. He screwed his own pooch.